


caveat emptor (let the buyer beware)

by Tatsumaki_sama



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dysfunctional Family, Family Feels, First Meetings, Gen, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Kidnapping, Parent-Child Relationship, Protectiveness, Rescue, Trauma, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18686848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tatsumaki_sama/pseuds/Tatsumaki_sama
Summary: A rival gang seizes an opportunity to kidnap Nero to extract revenge on his father. Except, it is all very confusing to the young child because Nero doesn't even know who his father is.





	caveat emptor (let the buyer beware)

**Author's Note:**

> I had wanted to write a gangster/no powers AU and a Child!Nero so I thought, why not combine both? Also, kidnapping Nero would probably be one of the worst decisions ever made considering his family, hence the latin proverb as the title. As for who ordered Nero's kidnapping, I will leave it up to the reader's imagination.
> 
> I also had some fun trying to imagine the demons as human while still retaining some of their demonic aspects. Malphas took on a larger role than I had originally expected. If you thought Vergil was awkward dealing with Nero as an adult, dealing with Nero as a child would be even more awkward.

The kidnapping happened on the day Nero had been playing in the park not too far from his home after school.

 

Lady had asked Kyrie's older brother to look after him until she got back in a few hours because something suddenly had came up regarding her contacts for her job. Trish and Dante weren't due to come back until tomorrow night because they had a “business trip”. Again, something related to work, as far as Nero knew.

 

One moment Nero could see Credo sitting in the distance, attentively watching Kyrie hang from the monkey bars, and the next, Nero found himself being dragged away, a large gloved hand pressed tightly over his mouth and being thrown into a van.

 

Nero tried to scramble to his feet and lunge for the door but the men blocked his escape.

 

One man, his face a horrible mess of skinless flesh and scarring, shoved a piece of cloth over Nero's mouth just as Nero bit down on his hand.

 

He roared in pain, while someone laughed at him, before he backhanded Nero across the face, hard enough to make him fall to the floor of the dusty grimy van.

 

“ Don't hurt the package too much,” someone – a woman sitting in the front – cautioned, not sounding remotely concerned. “ We need him alive for him to be any use.”

 

“ Not my fault,” the scarred man mumbled, rubbing at his hand.

 

“ The boy got one over you, Nidhogg.”

 

“ That one was never very bright.”

 

“ Are you calling me dumb?! Malphas called me dumb!”

 

Their argument continued, even as the man finished binding Nero's arms behind his back and tightened the gag over his mouth, ignoring his muffled coughs.

 

Terrified, all Nero could do was remain lying on the floor as the van shook and jostled his entire body.

 

After some time, the van finally stopped and the large beast of a man with thick burly arms who had grabbed Nero from the park dragged him out. Nero struggled as best as he could, but the man – he thought he heard Nidhogg call him Goliath – had a stronger grip around the scruff of Nero's neck.

 

It looked they brought him to some underground warehouse, most of the windows were boarded up, barely letting any light in, boxes and other items pushed aside in the hallway.

 

Goliath brought Nero to an empty devoid of any furniture other than a lone chair where he tied Nero to it. “ Behave yourself, boy,” he warned, fastening the rope a little tighter over Nero's wrists, making Nero cry out from behind the gag, to make his point clear.

 

Then he left, slamming the door shut, leaving Nero all alone.

 

After a moment when nothing else happened, Nero tried to swallow his fear, and control his erratic breathing, feeling his heart pounding so fast that his chest hurt.

 

He wanted Dante. He wanted Trish and Lady. He wanted Kyrie and Credo.

 

Were they looking for him? Surely, they knew he was missing by now. It felt like hours since he was taken.

 

And why? Why did these people want him? They said they needed him alive. But it didn't make any sense. As far as Nero was concerned, he wasn't anyone special. He was just a regular kid.

 

Right?

 

~.~.~

 

Nero had been struggling for several minutes and trying to loosen the ropes on his wrists, wincing as the rope only dug deeper into his skin, feeling a slick wetness of either sweat or blood trickle over his fingers, when Nidhogg and Goliath returned.

 

He froze when he saw that Nidhogg was holding a camera.

 

“ Hey, kid. Won't you smile for the camera?” Goliath guffawed.

 

Nero threw him the dirtiest look he could muster. If his hands were untied, he could show them a certain hand gesture he had seen Dante used before when wanting to insult someone.

 

Grinning far too wide, Goliath suddenly moved, seizing a handful of Nero's hair, making him yelp in pain. “ Insolent whelp.”

 

Somewhere, Nero could hear a click of a camera.

 

“ If I had my way with you, I would have just eaten you. Your blood would have tasted sweet,” he smirked. He placed his other gnarly hand against Nero's cheek that still stung from the earlier hit, dragging a sharp finger against his skin. Nero shuddered at the touch.

 

“ But eating you would do no good,” Goliath continued, yanking hard enough to jar Nero's neck and rattle his teeth. Tears stung the corners of Nero's eyes as he fruitlessly struggled to break free. “ We have need of you to bring out your father.”

 

Father?

 

Nero didn't get a chance to fully comprehend the information before Goliath finally released him. He could breathe again and it didn't feel like his neck was going to snap off.

 

Goliath peered at the photos that Nidhogg had taken. “ Hmph. You managed to take some decent photos despite not having any eyes.”

 

“ Did you insult me?!”

 

Their bickering continued even as they left the room once again.

 

But the question lingered. They wanted Nero's ... father?

 

Nero didn't have a father. Ever since he was young and after Dante found him from the orphanage, he lived with Dante and soon, Trish and Lady joined their little family. It had always been just the four of them.

 

He wanted to ask Dante. Surely Dante must have known. Dante was the one to take in Nero and basically adopt him in all but name. It couldn't have been a coincidence that he and Nero shared the same white hair and blue eyes. Lady sometimes joked that he and Dante act a lot like each other. That must be proof enough they were family.

 

Instead, Nero had asked Trish if she knew who his father was. It had to be Dante, right? Trish had a soft, sad expression that he had a hard time reading. Finally, she said it wasn't her place to tell him.

 

Once he got out of here, he was going to get some answers from Dante, one way or another.

 

~.~.~

 

Time crawled by. There was no clock or a window for Nero to know how long he had been in here. He struggled against his bonds, kicking his legs uselessly and tried wiggling the chair over to the door to no avail. He dozed off several times, waking up feeling thirsty and hungry. Sometimes, his breathing would catch and he felt like the walls were closing in and he was going to die here.

 

Where was Dante and the others? Did they forget about him?

 

But then, Nero had to scold himself for even thinking such things. Dante might be a lot of things but he was not the kind of person to abandon someone in need. And Dante told him that Nero was counted as one of the few that Dante cared about and wouldn't let anything happen to him.

 

He just had to believe that.

 

His kidnappers did not return to the room since, even if Nero could hear them sometimes stomping and talking just outside the room. Did they manage to find the person who they believed was Nero's father? Why did they want him so badly anyways? Did his so-called father even know about the kidnapping? Did he even care?

 

Nero was just thinking about his mysterious father wearing a fancy business suit and living in some faraway city when an onslaught of gunfire from the distance interrupted his thoughts.

 

The room appeared to shake violently as what sounded like an explosion rumbled through the walls. People were shouting and running. There was more shots being fired in all directions.

 

Nero froze. What was happening outside?

 

Just then, the door was flung open and Nero's hopes that it was Dante, Trish or Lady rescuing him was dashed when an unknown woman hurried in, a twisted disgruntled expression on her face.

 

She was unnaturally pale with long dark hair and she was muttering to herself. She hardly glanced at Nero as she began to cut the rope still binding his wrists to the chair.

 

“ – did not understand the severity of the situation. A blood descendant of Sparda is far too dangerous to leave alone. We had warned him.”

 

“ We did, did we not? We told him he should have dealt with the boy sooner,” she abruptly said, her voice changing into a harsher tone.

 

“ But the boy may still have some use yet.”

 

“ True,” she agreed.

 

Nero couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. He also didn't understand why she was talking to herself like that. There wasn't anyone else in the room but the two of them.

 

He could have sworn he heard her voice before. Was this the same woman who had sat in the front of the van when he was first kidnapped? Didn't Nidhogg call her Malphas?

 

“ Come along, my little chick,” Malphas suddenly crooned to Nero. Her dark purple nails bit into Nero's arm as she plucked him up from the chair and set him on the floor with surprising strength. “ We have places to go to.”

 

Nero's numbed legs barely had time to adjust to the sudden flow of circulation before she began hauling him away.

 

Malphas moved swiftly, dragging Nero along with her. Any attempt to pull away or run away hardly did anything as her grip over Nero's arm was too strong for him to break from, like her hand had permanently melded into his skin.

 

She led him down different hallways and through several doors without hesitation, without stopping. The sounds of gunfire and explosions followed them, but yet, Malphas knew the warehouse well enough to place better distance between them, weaving between rooms that it appeared she could teleport to any room if she desired.

 

And during all of this, she continued to talk to herself, ignoring Nero's grunts and struggles to escape.

 

“ Who could it be but the sons of Sparda to cause such mayhem?” she hissed.

 

“ They have proven trickier than expected over time, meddling into our affairs and infringing into our territory.”

 

“ And then they ran like dogs, hiding and evading us! How dare they!”

 

“ But then we discovered the boy.”

 

“ Ahh yes, the boy. He is the bait to lure out his father.”

 

None of it made any sense to Nero who was growing uneasy with this new information he was hearing. Who was this Sparda and his sons? They had been clashing against Malphas's group for some time and they held a grudge against Nero's supposed father? How was his father involved in all of this?

 

They were no longer in the warehouse as she veered off into a darkened alley way. The sun had set and Nero could see the faint glow of stars flitting between the clouds in the night sky.

 

Nero began to panic. Where was she taking him to? Another location to be hidden away and held hostage again? Or was she going to kill him here and dispose his body somewhere where Dante, Trish and Lady wouldn't be able to find him or recognize him?

 

It was not only the cold night air that made Nero shiver.

 

Malphas abruptly came to a stop, causing him to crash into her.

 

There was a white-haired man wearing a crisp dark blue jacket standing at the end of the alley way, preventing them from going any further. Nero thought he resembled Dante if Dante was more grim, wasn't capable of smiling, dressed more formally and had slicked his hair back.

 

Malphas's hand suddenly clamped around Nero's throat, making him flinch and renew his attempts to escape. Her hold tightened, almost lifting him from his feet from the floor, making him gasp and cry out.

 

“ You. We had not been expecting you.” She frowned, tilting her head in puzzlement. “ Then perhaps the boy is – ?”

 

The man did not answer. His eyes flickered to Nero. There was an unreadable expression across his face as he appeared to study Nero, peering intently at him. Did he know Nero? Or perhaps Dante sent him to find and rescue Nero?

 

“ It matters not,” Malphas finally said, more to herself than to him. “ You managed to receive our message about the boy.”

 

“ I did not receive any message,” the man dismissively said.

 

“ But regardless, you came,” Malphas purred. She seemed delighted for some reason. “ This boy is important to you.”

 

She casually brought Nero forward, like she wanted the white-haired man to get a clear full view of him. Her fingers began drumming over his exposed neck, her nails tantalizingly close and prickling his skin.

 

“ The boy means nothing to me,” the man coldly said, mouth set in a hard line.

 

Malphas laughed, a high cruel sound grating Nero's ears. “ You are a terrible liar, son of Sparda,” she mocked. “ Our master knew so.”

 

The man's eyes hardened like chips of ice. “ That person is no longer here,” he sharply said.

 

“ And yet a whisper of his return was enough to bring you into the open, was it not?” Malphas hummed.

 

There was a crack in the white-haired man's otherwise stoic face. There was a flash of fury and viciousness in his eyes that frightened Nero.

 

“ The boy served his purpose well.” Malphas smiled sweetly. “ The lineage of Sparda, as little as it is, runs through him as well.”

 

The man remained silent.

 

“ We once said he resembled Sparda. But now that we had a closer look – ”

 

Her smile widened cruelly, like a beast toying with its prey.

 

“ We would say he takes after your _mother_ more.”

 

At the end of her words, Malphas's long nails began raking across his throat, deep enough to draw blood. Nero screamed underneath the gag.

 

Dante ... he wanted Dante. He was trying to be brave but he couldn't anymore. He was just so scared. Was she going to kill him? He didn't want to die. It hurt, it hurt so much. He wanted her to stop. He wanted it to end.

 

And just like that, it stopped.

 

Her nails were no longer clawing into his throat. The pain was no longer as excruciating, reduced to only a jabbing throb. Nero opened his eyes that he did not remember closing.

 

Malphas's grip had loosened, allowing him to breathe properly again. In front of Nero was the white-haired man wearing a terrifying, deadly expression and holding a gleaming sword that wasn't there before.

 

And the man was plunging it into something – or _someone_ – just above Nero's head.

 

There was a horrible squelching sound and a convulsing strangled gurgle somewhere behind Nero. Malphas's arm sluggishly dropped, releasing Nero completely. He could smell a strong metallic odor filling the air, making him gag. Something warm, wet and slick was trickling down the back of Nero's neck and he could hear the soft _drip drip_ of it spilling and splattering onto the floor.

 

Almost against his own will, Nero started turning his head around.

 

“ Nero.”

 

The sharpness of the man's voice made Nero freeze in place. He looked up at the man, acutely realizing just how close in physical proximity they were. Vaguely, Nero wondered how the man knew his name.

 

“ Look at me,” he said. His voice, once harsh and aloof, managed to be schooled into something gentler. “ Don't turn around.”

 

Nero swallowed, but obeyed.

 

The man withdrew his sword and sheathed it simultaneously, fast enough that the blade was a blur – fast enough that Nero wouldn't be able to see if there was any blood on it. There was a sickening thump behind Nero and the slow realization of what really happened to Malphas made him want to throw up.

 

“ Nero.” The man directed Nero's attention to him again. “ We are leaving. Come.”

 

But he couldn't move. He was rooted in place. His breaths came quick and heavy. His bottom lip trembled. Tears burned down his cheeks.

 

Frowning, the white-haired man made a motion to reach for Nero but Nero flinched at his touch.

 

The man thankfully pulled back as if burned. His mouth was pressed into a thin line. “ We need to leave,” he reiterated sternly. “ It is not safe here.”

 

But was it safe with the man? Nero didn't know him. And he had just killed –

 

Nero started shivering again.

 

He wanted Dante, not this stranger.

 

The white-haired man made a funny sound. It almost sounded like he was sighing. “ I can bring you to Dante, if that is what you wish,” he finally said, his expression souring at the mere mention of Dante.

 

He knew Dante? But the man didn't sound too pleased saying Dante's name. And Nero didn't trust the white-haired man.

 

(after all, didn't he earlier say Nero was nothing to him?)

 

But he did protect Nero in the end.

 

Finally, Nero gave a tiny nod.

 

The tension in the man's brow lessened slightly.

 

He reached for Nero's gag and this time, Nero let him. He tugged off the cloth a little roughly, making Nero wince and cough, but at least he could breathe without the gag restricting him. After the man undid the ropes tying Nero's arms behind his back, Nero saw with fascination and horror that his wrists had bruised, bloody lacerations cutting into his skin from his previous struggles.

 

“ We are leaving,” the white-haired man brusquely said as he suddenly picked up Nero under the arms.

 

With a surprised squeak, Nero immediately wrapped his arms around the man's neck to prevent himself from toppling or falling over. It was evident that the man had little experience carrying children, from the way he stilled the moment Nero latched onto him and he hesitantly shifted his stance to reposition Nero better.

 

Despite the paleness of the man's face, he was warm, especially because Nero felt so cold. He burrowed closer to the man's chin, hands clenching the front of the man's jacket, relishing in his heat.

 

“ Don't look back,” the man warned one more time as he started walking. For some reason, his voice appeared to sound a little odd and stifled, like he wasn't expecting Nero to cling to him so intimately. His arms came up to stiffly hold Nero a little tighter like he was concerned that Nero might disappear if his grip wasn't strong enough.

 

But Nero was too exhausted to think about such things. All he knew was that this stranger was warm and he was bringing him to safety where Dante was.

 

Perhaps the white-haired man wasn't so bad after all.

 


End file.
